


A Bigger Family

by cadkitten



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, Superman - All Media Types
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Matchmaking, Unresolved Sexual Tension, Voyeurism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-08
Updated: 2018-12-08
Packaged: 2019-09-14 07:50:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16909059
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cadkitten/pseuds/cadkitten
Summary: Tim's noticed something about the way Bruce and Clark are interacting. He thinks there's something more to it than meets the eye. He goes digging and then he goes matchmaking.





	A Bigger Family

**Author's Note:**

  * For [IndigoNight](https://archiveofourown.org/users/IndigoNight/gifts).



> For @dcmarvelbingobang for @IndigoNight You were my assignee - Request was BruClark for Bingo Slot "Kids Playing Matchmaker". Requested people to include (possibly) were: Kon, Tim, Jason, Dick, Alfred, Bruce, Clark.  
> (I've left Damian and Jon out - as they weren't requested - and set it pre them existing and also pre-Lois/Clark to make it all work in my brain-space! Timelines are... wibbly as per our usual fandom-ness; take it as it is!)
> 
> Beta: kate1zena

It's obvious, or at least more obvious than it should be. Tim settles on the bench behind them in pretense of taking off his boots. He takes his time, watching the two as carefully as he can. 

The way Clark stands closer to Bruce more than anyone else speaks of a desire to touch, though he doesn't. The closer Clark gets, the more Bruce's shoulders relax and the easier he breathes; it's not how he behaves with anyone else. He watches Bruce lean forward to prop an elbow on the desk as they consider the data on screen, sees Clark mirror the movement by placing his palm on the desk and leaning into it. 

Tim's not stupid, not by a long shot. In fact, he's something of a genius (so the tests say), so it's easy to figure out what's going on here. Even the eyes of a teenage boy can parse it all together. 

They want one another. 

Tim considers the idea of it. He thinks of Bruce being happy and of Clark finding someone to come home to at night. He's seen the man's lonely apartment, watched him sit sadly on the sofa with no one around him to cheer him up once he's come home from a terrible fire. Tim doesn't know if Clark just didn't notice him or if he ignored him in favor of acting all that much more like Clark Kent instead of Superman. He'd like to think the former but assumes the latter. 

More, he's watched Bruce's horrible mood swings, seen him at his lowest and on the days when the past doesn't creep in just so much. He's noticed the correlation between the good days and Clark having been a part of those days. 

Tim thinks they have no idea what's best for them if they're avoiding this. 

It's not the first time he's thought about trying to manipulate things to get them together. He stands up, his boots dangling from his fingertips and watches the aborted way Bruce half leans toward Clark. He wonders if maybe they _are_ together and trying desperately to hide it from everyone. He leaves the room with the intent to find out.

Tim doesn't shower, doesn't bother to do a thing other than make his way upstairs and curl up on his bed with his laptop. He takes his back way into the mainframe and makes sure he's gone unnoticed before he starts a search algorithm on Bruce and Clark's images when they appear together. Every video feed, every photo, all of it. He waits, tapping his fingers on his computer until it's done. When it is, he frowns at the pitiful few things it's pulled up. He scans the dates and tosses ones he knows he was there during, leaves feeds for after he'd left or when he wasn't around and he scours it.

Hours later, he sits back, exhausted and more than a little frustrated. It's been going on for nearly a year now. Both of them looking for all the world like they want one another but neither acting on it. He wonders if there's something that's happened off-feed somewhere. A discussion or an interaction of some kind that blossomed the whole thing because it's all very abrupt. One day they're not looking at each other every second the other isn't paying attention, the next they are. One day they behave like coworkers that generally tolerate one another and the next they act like lovers ripped apart. 

Tim thinks there's been sex or at least a kiss where the cameras haven't seen it. He searches for things that have been erased and he finds nothing.

He searches for their images separately the day before and the day of their changes toward one another. He finds _something_.

It feels strange, seeing Bruce like this; watching him actually lose control. He sees Ivy and he sees the vines that he – personally – knows all too well. He's felt their requirements of truth-telling and he's felt the way it wrenched him into admitting the hard things both to himself and out loud. Sometimes Tim privately wonders if she's not as bad as they think she is. Perhaps just misguided in her attempts to help.

He leans on his palm and watches Bruce fall apart, he sees him admit something but the CCTV feed doesn’t have audio and it's too grainy for him to read lips. He sees the twist of agony in the way Bruce is holding himself and he thinks he understands that, too. Admitting things you don't want to is difficult. Unwillingly admitting them is worse.

The video from the Justice League headquarters the next day presents the vague discomfort of Bruce dealing with every person _except_ Clark. It's worse than usual and Tim thinks that whatever was said, Bruce fears they all know. He sees it in the way he moves, in the way he avoids more than usual, in how quickly he's done and gone.

The night yields Bruce clearly having to call Clark in for help and the feeds pick up where Tim had found them before. He thinks he knows what he'd find if he dug deeper into Bruce's private feeds, of when he's alone, when he feels safe enough to give in. He doesn't look, though the temptation is there. Tim is nothing if not naturally inclined to this sort of voyeurism. It's not a kink so much as it is how he grew up. He knows when to hold it back, as he does now.

Sitting back, he closes the screen and ponders how best to make them both admit what they want. He doesn't want it to happen under duress as that will only make things worse. It has to happen naturally and they both have to feel like it's their idea and not that they've been coerced into the confession. Tim knows Clark is the easier target.

Tim also knows Dick is his best chance at obtaining help. 

He takes a week to make up his mind and finds a night he knows Nightwing will be out. Two hours into patrol he tells Bruce he's got a class project due and goes home like a good boy. He re-routes his feeds to show him studying on a long enough loop it won't tip Bruce off for at least two hours and then bails back out of the house and steals his way to Blüdhaven. It doesn't take long to track Dick down and he intercepts him on a rooftop he knows isn't monitored. 

It feels strange reaching out for help like this, but he hands a note to Dick and waits.

 _We can't say any of this out loud as it involves the big S_.

Dick gives him a worried look and tips his head, crouches with Tim behind the rumbling heater unit on the building and they set to work passing messages like schoolboys. Tim tells him about all he's found and shows him some of the proof on his wrist computer, sees the smile tugging on Dick's lips while he watches, and he knows he already has him won over to his plan before he ever pitches it.

They both have to work on Clark and Tim has to somehow get the idea into Bruce's head that it's okay to want someone else in his life. He knows that part will risk his position, that it could all blow up in his face and Bruce will start believing he needs no one and push Tim away, too. 

Tim's been pushed away before and it hasn't stopped him. He'll figure it out if it comes to it.

They part ways with the understanding that Dick will visit with Clark and find a good way to bring the conversation around to the idea of it. He thinks he can trust Dick to do the right thing with Clark. After all, it's not Clark that needs kid gloves.

He takes his time with Bruce. He stretches aborted conversations over weeks and it turns into months. Gotham grows colder and colder and it's only when there's snow on the ground that he finally addresses the beast head-on. 

"Would you ever consider taking a lover who's a vigilante like us?"

He sees the shock register on Bruce's face and then the calm acceptance that this is a conversation they're having. "Why do you ask?"

Tim shrugs, turns to lean his rear against the console and tips his head back, regarding the unseen depths of the cave above him. "Just been thinking about it. Like what if the opportunity ever came along, what would I do with it? It makes me wonder what others would."

Bruce is silent for what Tim thinks to be too long and when he answers it's careful, guarded. "I believe the opportunity would be rare – if not elusive – and the risk would be variant depending on whom it happened to be. However, as long as you considered every angle and decided it was worth any risk to pursue then perhaps it would be worth it to attempt."

It answers some of it, but it doesn't address it as if it were Bruce. For this to work, Tim needs it to be applied to Bruce. Both in his mind and out loud.

"And if it were you?"

He can almost see Bruce's protective shudder. It doesn't happen so much as the absence of it speaks for itself. He sees the ghost of it occur anyway. Bruce's tongue sounds thick when he speaks this time. "I have... indulged in the past. I do not find regret in it, though I do not believe anyone harbors such interest in me for the time being. It would be a waste of time considering it."

Yet, Tim can see he _is_ considering it. He silently watches the gears turn, the cognitive puzzle pieces falling into place, and he sees when the answer actually touches home in Bruce's features an instant before they're gone and tucked back away into wherever they unearthed themselves from. He knows the answer is that Bruce would accept if given the chance.

Tim moves the conversation in a natural direction if only to avoid detection. He has his answer and he's had Clark's for nearly a month. Dick did a surprisingly good job getting Clark to open up to him and as far as Tim can tell he did it somewhere there wasn't a single camera involved. 

He can admit he's impressed.

Tim plots the rest of it alone. He's careful to place invites to only the people that matter most for Christmas dinner. He sets the layout in pretense of wanting to behave like it's a formal event and Alfred lets him put Clark and Bruce right beside each other, lets him send invitations that don't allow for plus ones. He doesn't comment when Tim places Jason on the left of himself and Clark on the right. It's all too easy and he wonders if Alfred knows.

Alfred _always_ knows.

When it comes time, Tim is impressed with Clark's punctuality. Not that he can't get anywhere he needs to in record time, but Clark arrives _in a car_. He's dropped off by the vehicle and it leaves the premises and Tim ponders on it as Clark picks up his duffel bag and the huge sack of what he assumes to be gifts or snacks for the dinner. He thinks to himself that this is a man prepared and he decides he has little to do other than a gentle nudge in the right direction. He doesn't know what Dick told Clark, but he knows it had to have been pretty damn good for this kind of reaction. 

He silently prays this doesn't all go south on them.

The bag turns out to be gifts and Tim adds them under the tree with Clark's surprisingly slow help. He decides it's a day they're deciding to be normal on and he lets it happen without comment. Everyone deserves a day of rest.

That only lasts for an hour before Clark is gone for nearly two and comes back smelling vaguely of smoke and a little wearier around the edges. Tim doesn't ask; he knows better than that.

The evening goes fairly smoothly, Clark and Bruce conversing over dinner as if they're the best of old pals that desperately need to catch up. He thinks about it and realizes they never talk about things that aren't work when they're in the cave. He makes a mental note to set up lunches and dinners a few times a month and invite Clark to them just to try to keep Bruce socializing. Even if this doesn't work out, there's no reason friends can't keep in touch more often with his meddling fingers in the pot.

They retire to the sitting room and Tim follows, drifts off to a corner to go as unnoticed as possible. Dick corrals Jason and they head outside. Tim feels like the room is filled with held breath and nerves; it's a palpable feeling in the air. It's a struggle to keep his heart rate steady as he listens to their conversation. It's not long before he hears the telling hitch in Bruce's breath and Tim flicks his eyes to the glass of the framed photo on the wall, watches the slightly hazy image of Clark and Bruce together. He sees how close they are, watches Clark's fingertips graze over Bruce's wrist. It's mutual when they step in toward one another and Tim feels excitement in his veins when Clark steps in and Bruce's entire body relaxes. 

The kiss isn't unexpected after that display and neither are the murmured words of confession that follow it. The conversation lasts longer than he'd thought it would, hashes out more than he thought either of them capable of navigating, and this time it's Bruce leaning in for the kiss, Bruce cupping his hand around the back of Clark's neck and holding him there as they deepen it. 

Pleasure skitters through Tim's veins and he has to hide his grin behind his hand. He knows he should stop watching them, stop seeing how they whisper and how he can't make out their words anymore. He knows he shouldn't be seeing the intimate little touches – fingertips along a shoulder, the brush of a hand at the other's waist – but he takes it all in as if this and this alone is his gift. 

When their next kiss is something more, he knows it is. He watches as they pass him by like he's air and when he hears their footsteps on the stairs, he flops back on the couch and grins up at the roof. They've done it; they've pulled off the biggest moment in the history of their being a family. 

He turns to rest his cheek on the couch and curls up, staring into the fireplace and simply taking satisfaction in this moment. 

Holidays are supposed to be about families and this year, Tim's glad he could make his grow just a little bit more.


End file.
